Long long long long LONG ago Phillip and I decided we were going to retile our shower and everyone knew this was a bad idea, but everyone was nice about it anyway. It was a mostly miserable experience and I don't think one single part of it was easy or straightforward AND the project as a whole is still not FINISHED per se, but hey, we took showers in it this morning!

Do I know why these pictures are different sizes? No I do not. At least they are right side up, okay? ANYWAY. AS YOU CAN SEE: this shower is lacking a door, which we must special order and which will most likely cost as much as we paid to redo the backerboard and tile. It also looks dark and dreary and SAD, so I am calling it The Prison Shower Cell. This is most definitely not the shower of my dreams, but HEY, it was 1) CHEAP and 2) no longer rotting behind the tiles! I think that's definitely a win. You can probably also see those red edges... THAT, my friends, is a product called RedGard, which is basically a liquid plastic that you paint onto the backerboard to waterproof everything. It takes the place of putting waterproof plastic over the studs. (I think. Who really knows?) When Phillip was taking off the tile at the very beginning, we needed to basically cut off giant sections of drywall (THEY TILED ON DRYWALL, EVEN I KNOW YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT) and so what you see there is the leftover area where we ripped off drywall, but didn't tile over it. Maybe we should have? Actually, that would have greatly complicated the tile pattern (since you can see we used GIANT TILE)... What we really should have done is not cut off so much drywall. Or used small tiles and tiled everything. But oh well! C'est la vie! The plan for that is to put up super thick white trim and just cover it up. You don't need to comment on it because THIS IS GOING TO WORK IT HAS TO WORK THE END.

BESIDES. One day (when I'm seventy or eighty) we're going to split this bathroom into two and we'll wall off that doorway and professionals will have to deal with it. SO THERE.

Here's what faces the shower:

Why the wall and pocket door here, house builders? (OH I WON'T START THAT AGAIN, SORRY.) Anyway, Ikea shelf from our first apartment, wire baskets I picked up at Fred Meyer this afternoon, random picture frames I collected from around our house and decided they don't go so I just left them there...

And here's where I have BIG! PLANS!

Oh hello white vinyl cabinetry matching all the other white vinyl cabinetry in the rest of my 1980s house! HERE ARE MY PLANS (brainstormed with EBJ, obvs). 1. Sand down the wood trim around the counter and under the mirror and either leave it an unstained lighter wood or paint it white. 2. Frame the giant mirror with white trim a'la millions of Pinterest pictures. And 3. paint the wood drawer and cabinet trim a DARK TEAL to match ... (dum dum dum)

...that little pendant light I picked up at Target a few weeks back knowing I would have to find SOMEWHERE to hang it. So this is opposite the sinks. Until this afternoon the tub was overflowing with tools and thinset mix and broken tile and ARGH. But now it is sparkling and beautiful and MINE ALL MINE. I hung the fabric covered canvases I used to have in my living room (before the gallery wall) and putting some color in there was JUST THE THING, Internet! I feel like if I paint the trim a color and frame off the mirror I might be able to stand my bathroom until we remodel! When I'm seventy or eighty!

Does the shower match? NOOOOO. I'm hoping that when we remodel (when I'm 70 or 80) each bathroom will look right, but for now OH WELL. Prison Shower Cell and teal pendant must coexist. (My future dream shower is all glossy white/glass/aqua, OBVS.)

Anyway, I'm super excited because PROJECT! And not a big horrible one either. A couple bucks for a quart of deep teal paint. I will have to deal with the shower and door trim at some point - that RedGard can't stay forever alas. But I can use my bathroom again! And it will be colorful! And HAPPEEEEEE.

(Please, someone pray we get a commercial kitchen lined up soon so I don't start going ape over my house again aaauugghhh)

Comments

You did so well! We have renovated 2.5 bathrooms so far, and while my husband is pretty handy, bathroom renos are a special kind of torture. (Our first major bath reno involved a room full of white subway tile. You were wise to go with the giant tile, trust me.) Congrats on being back to functionality!